Bioinformatics is an emerging interdisciplinary area of biotechnology and encompasses systematic development and application of IT solutions to handle biological research problems.

Areas such as proteomics, genomics, combinatorial chemistry, statistics, nanotechnology, spectroscopy and structural and computational biology will have increasing applications of bioinformatics in days to come.

To handle all these biological research problems, it requires highly trained manpower to deal molecular biology and application of software tools. The department had accorded this area high priority and has introduced several innovative educational activities to meet the present requirements including several long-term and short-term educational programs to address this gap.

The classes are being conducted through video conferencing and virtual class room approaches. The objective of the network programme is to share the expertise of teachers as well as the resources which are created by the BTISnet Centres.

The programme envisages creating of a strong computational and experimental basis to bioinformatics education at the post graduate level. The other universities i.e.

This year, more than 70 students have graduated from these programmes. The CoEs of BTISnet, including the super-computing facility at IIT, New Delhi are running Ph.D. programmes in Bioinformatics to meet the huge requirement for high-end human resource in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology.

Short Term Training Programmes

Basic understanding and hands on experience in the area of bioinformatics is provided to the researchers and students, by each of the BTISnet Centre by conducting one or more short term training programmes each year.

A schedule of the training programmes conducted by BTISNet Centres is published in the form of annual training calendar each year by the Department.

This calendar is distributed to all institutes, and is also available at the BTISnet website. The BTISnet centres have organised more than 100 short-term training during the year 2012-13 with focus on a broad spectrum of areas such as NGS analysis, drug discovery, protein folding, chemo-informatics etc.

Bioinformatics National Certification Examination (BINC)

The BINC examination was introduced in 2005 by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India to certify professionals in the area of Bioinformatics. JNU, New Delhi is conducting the BINC exam from 2011 onwards.

The BINC National Coordination committee is the driving force in setting and maintaining high standards of the BINC examination. The examination is conducted at eight centres. Click here for details.

The exam employs a three-tier system including an objective, subjective and practical examination. The fellowship provided is at par with NET, GATE, BET national Exams. So far 85 candidates have qualified the BINC and 15 out of them are availing the fellowship.